Leadership styles and job satisfaction among nurses of medical-surgical departments in the Qassim region hospitals in Saudi Arabia

Objective: To discover the type of leadership style (transformational vs. transactional) of nurse leaders and how it affects the work satisfaction of Medical-Surgical nurses working in public hospitals in Qassim Region, KSA. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used to collect data over three month’s duration. The following tools were utilized to be able to have an outcome of the research study; a multifactorial leadership questionnaire (MLQ) and a job satisfaction survey (JSS) with a demographic’s datasheet. The convenience sampling technique was employed for this study and the study recruited exactly 437 participants. This study was conducted in MOH hospitals; King Fahad Specialist Hospital (KFSH), Buraydah Central Hospital (BCH), and King Saud Hospital (KSH) in Qassim Region, KSA. The study used SPSS software to analyze the numeric data via using the following tests: descriptive analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson correlation, and Linear regression. Results: The result showed that leadership style was significant predictor of nurses' job satisfaction; transformational leadership (t = 3.50, p < 0.01) was more effective for predicting job satisfaction than transactional leadership (t = 2.43, p < 0.05). The result of JSS was measured by 36 items using a 6-point Likert scale, and the overall score was M = 3.49 ± 1.30, a moderate level. Conclusion: To sum up, this study recommended improving leadership style among nurse managers, administrators, and supervisors, more particularly, the adoption of the transformational technique to improve staff job satisfaction, encourage them to stay in their current job, and enhance their self-progress in the profession